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jmoHem Eeltgfoujj i^toblemjj 

EDITED BY 

AMBROSE WHITE VERNON 



THE FOUNDING OF 
THE CHURCH 



BY 



BENJAMIN WISNER BACON, DD., LL.D. 

BUCKINGHAM PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT 

CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION 

IN YALE UNIVERSITY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1909 



•*^*- 



K^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY BENJAMIN WISNER BACON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published October iqog 



)Gi.A3!^-i25?) 



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CONTENTS 

I. When was the Church founded ? i 

II. Peter the Foundation Rock 25 

III. The Confession of Jesus as Lord 47 

IV. Baptism and the Breaking of Bread 64 



THE FOUNDING OF THE 
CHURCH 

I 

WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

Does Christianity consist of the gospel 
preached by Jesus; or of the gospel 
preached a5(9/^/ Jesus ? The religious world 
of to-day is hotly debating this question, 
under such captions as "Jesus, or Paul?'' 
" The Gospel of Peter, or the Gospel of 
Paul? '' Much depends on the answer; and 
a satisfying answer is not easy. Jesus 
brought new light and hope to the reli- 
giously disinherited man by stripping re- 
ligion of its artificialities and non-essentials, 
and reducing it to ultimate simplicity — the 
filial relation toward God, the brotherly 
relation toward man. This one principle 

I 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

involved everything vital in the whole realm 
of duty and destiny. Its " easy yoke '' was 
glad tidings to men heavy laden with the 
legalism of the scribes. Its filial confidence 
in a Father in heaven was " rest to the soul " 
for men obsessed with priestcraft and 
magic. Jesus perished as the champion of 
the plain men — the wage-earners, to whose 
class he belonged, the fishermen of Galilee, 
the " publicans and sinners " who followed 
and trusted him; of the plain man's " right 
to be called a son of God." He was dubbed 
by the orthodox "a friend of publicans 
and sinners,'^ and he was crucified in the 
attempt to vindicate for the common peo- 
ple the full right of " sons " on the terms, 
and only on the terms, which the Father 
himself prescribes in the eternally living law 
" written on fleshly tables of the hearts" ' 

* Matt. II : 25-30. The knowing and being known of God 
as sons should be understood in the light of Paul's use of 
the same phraseology, Gal. 4 : 6-9 ; I Cor. i : 20-21. Cf. also 
II Tim. 2 : 19. 

2 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

The battle was fought in the arena of 
Judaism. Its issues were drawn between 
the petty sects and cliques and castes of that 
race, which but for its religious genius 
and literature would be rated only as one of 
the lesser peoples of Syria. If Jesus ever 
thought of it as concerning all humanity in 
its issues, save as humanity might become 
a penumbra — an adjunct — of the Jewish 
empire to which the nation then looked 
forward, it certainly was not till after his 
death that his disciples extended their view 
to this broader horizon.' Even then it was 
only after a struggle that threatened to dis- 
rupt the brotherhood, that the last limita- 
tions of a nationalistic view were broken 
down, and Christianity became " a world 
religion.'' This was the work of Paul. 

* The Gospel of Matthew still remains nationalistic. 
Matt. 7: 6 ; 10 ; 5, 6, 23 ; 15 : 24. Its universalism (28 : 19, 20) 
must be understood in consonance with these earlier pas- 
sages. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

Jesus had no idea of founding a new re- 
ligion. The religion of his fathers, of Moses 
and the prophets, was to him the absolute 
religion. Only he saw in it the one deep 
living principle of divine fatherhood as 
that on which all the law and the prophets 
depended. All which interfered with that 
was " precepts and doctrines of men.'' He 
heard the Pharisee and his " blind leader/' 
the scribe, quote from their book-divinity : 
" Come ye out from among them, and be 
ye separate," and touch no unclean thing : 
and I will receive you and will be to you 
a Father, and ye shall be to me sons and 
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." And 
over against this book-religion of precept 
and ceremonial he dared to set another will 
of the living God, a God accessible to the 
pure in heart. He assured those who imi- 
tated the loving-kindness of the All-merci- 
ful that they should be " sons and daughters 

* The literal meaning of the word ^'Pharisee." 

4 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

of the Highest."' This was Jesus' religion, 
his idea of duty and destiny. He did not 
inquire whether a science of comparative 
reHgion would trace the same deep prin- 
ciple in Greek poets and Oriental sages. 
Those who preached his gospel to the Gen- 
tiles did that. He did find it at the heart of 
" the law and the prophets.'' 

Jesus' death was a catastrophe which 
forced upon his followers this inevitable 
alternative: either return to the synagogue 
in shamed acknowledgment of defeat and 
error; or else, loyal adherence to the old 
Leader and to his gospel in spite of all. God 
gave them power to choose right. Miracu- 
lously or otherwise, their eyes were opened 
to see that the victory had not been with 
scribes and priests, but with the champion 
of the plain man. Jesus' faith in God had 
proved a victory to overcome the world. 
They clung to him. They believed in him, 

* With II Cor. 6 : 17-18, c£. Matt. 5:8; 43-45. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

not only as the Son of God, but as the ex- 
pected Son of man, the Judge of the world. 
Shortly after, the very leader of the reaction 
against them, the organizer of persecution 
against those who had dared to defy legal- 
ism and to proclaim forgiveness and the 
rights of ^^sonship" in the name of Jesus, 
— Saul of Tarsus, the man who represented 
the very incarnation of that sophisticated 
religiosity that had crucified Jesus, — was 
suddenly transformed into his most ardent, 
most devoted advocate. Paul took up the 
cause of the Leader of the Galileans because 
he had seen him in vision, a vision which 
recalls the apostrophe of his victim Stephen 
to the coming Judge. Paul does not seem 
to have ever laid eyes upon Jesus in the 
flesh; but he made Jesus' cause the cause of 
humanity. A zealot for the law, he pro- 
claimed Jesus the champion of those with- 
out the law; as Judge indeed, but most of 
all as God-sent Redeemer. More than that, 

6 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

Paul claimed it as a new and special revela- 
tion to himself that this redemption applied 
to " sinners of the Gentiles " as well as to 
" sinners '' of the sons of Abraham. 

This new "gospel of the uncircumci- 
sion" was the immediate fruit of Paul's 
own distinctive, personal experience. God 
had taught him in the most heart-search- 
ing soul-struggle of which man can be 
capable, by " manifesting his son in '' him, 
that the redemption of man as such, as son 
of Adam, as heir to the universal strug- 
gle against a " law of sin and death in the 
members, warring against the law of the 
mind,'' finds its solution in Jesus' principle 
of faith. The revelation of Jesus as a glori- 
fied second Adam, "the Lord from heaven," 
was God's own endorsement. This gospel 
about Christ became to Paul "the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that 
trusteth, to the Jew first, but also to the 
Greek." 

7 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

Which, then, is " the '' gospel ? Is it that 
proclaimed on the Mount of Beatitudes; or 
that proclaimed on Mars' Hill?' Is it the 
Way of faith which Jesus taught and ex- 
emplified ? Or is it an embassage of recon- 
ciliation from God, resting on the demon- 
stration of the Spirit and of power — mi- 
raculous or otherwise — by which God then 
indorsed, and still indorses, the teaching of 
his " Son " ? ^ Is it the simplicity of absolute 
religion as God reveals it to " babes '^ which 
Jesus taught and vindicated ? Or is it the 
doctrine that Jesus himself has been mani- 
fested with power as the Son of God, by 
the resurrection from the dead ? Those who 
had known Christ after the flesh, of whom 
Peter is the great representative, naturally 
emphasized more what Jesus had done and 
taught. But however self-evidencing that 

' Cf. Matt. 5 : 44, 45, with Acts 17 : 30, 31. 
^ What Hegel called "the representation of the divine 
idea in Jesus' life and fate." 

8 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

gospel may be to us, to the Galilean 
apostles, as well as to Paul, the "new 
law " derived its authority from the mirac- 
ulous indorsement of divine power which 
had accompanied it. The starting-point in 
both cases was the Resurrection.' Paul, 
who, if he had " known a Christ after the 
flesh, yet now would know him so no 
more," centres everything on the signifi- 
cance of the Cross and the Resurrection. 
" God commendeth his love toward us, in 
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died 
for us." This drama of God's enacting, 
summed up in the words, "Christ that 
died, yea rather that was raised from the 
dead," eclipses all else in its light. It is a 
message of glad tidings to every victim of 
the Adamic curse of sin and death. This 
gospel about Jesus is also everlastingly 
self-verifiable to every man by the simple 
exercise of trust in the love which sent it. 

* I Cor. 15 : i~ii. 

9 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

God sends in Jesus' name to " those who 
are yet weak'' the Spirit, which is life, 
power, adoption, sanctification. The sign 
of apostleship is power.' 

Surely neither gospel is complete with- 
out the other. Jesus taught the Way; he 
nvas it, both by revealing the truth and by 
conveying the life. But the ultimate test 
question is whether men do now " cc^e to 
the Father by" him. The demonstration 
of the Spirit and of power, from Pentecost 
to the last redeemed waif of New York's 
slums, is the present-day, living gospel, 
without which even the teaching of Jesus 
is only a teaching of the past. 

And if there are two aspects of the gos- 
pel, so there are also two ways of conceiv- 
ing the founding of the Church. ^^ Other 
foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ." And yet it is 

^ II Cor. 12:12; Gal. 2:7-9; Luke 24:49; Mark 16: 
15-18, 20; Heb. 2:3, 4. 

10 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

certain that Jesus had no idea of founding 
what we mean by the Church. He expected 
the "little flock'' that he had gathered 
around him to endure as such, but only till 
the Father's purpose "to give them the 
kingdom" was fulfilled; and this he ex- 
pected before the passing of that generation. 
He did not expect them to go out of Israel. 
He expected Israel, after a period of re- 
jection, to yield to their plea — or else be 
destroyed. 

Most scholars still maintain, in spite of 
critical opposition, that in the last weeks 
of his life, at first only to his intimates, 
and under strict pledge of secrecy, Jesus 
assumed the role of Messiah, "the king of 
Israel."' All, of every shade of opinion, 
will admit that if the title Messiah was 
assumed at all, it was in a sense which to 
his contemporaries would seem figurative. 
We believe it to have been assumed; but 

' John I : 49. 

II 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

in a purely ethical-religious sense, an older 
sense than the monarchical. 

Israel was to be God's "son.'' That was 
the essence of the Messianic hope, a hope 
which antedates the monarchy, " Sonship" 
was the ideal to which Jesus sought to lead. 
If "Messiah" could be made to mean " He 
who brings Israel into the relation of sons 
to their father/' Jesus could welcome the 
title with all its dangers. As "the"' son 
he knew the Father, and could reveal him 
by far better right than the most learned 
scribe of unfilial spirit. On behalf of all 
the disinherited he must claim to the full 
the rights of a " son of the Highest." But the 
only title on which he permits the claim to 
be rested is ethical, — participation in the 
nature and disposition of the All-merciful. 
Whosoever would do the will revealed in 

^ The article in Matt, ii : 27 is generic, as in John 8 : 35, 
" the bond servant abideth not in the house forever, but 
the son abideth forever." The use of a capital S is mislead- 
ing. 

12 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

this Father's goodness, he welcomed as a 
brother, sister, mother.' 

There was, then, already a brotherhood 
in Jesus' time. And its " law '' of mutual 
service was formulated. The " bond of per- 
fectness " which Paul makes the basis of a 
new sociology did not have to be invented 
for the Churches of Asia. "Whosoever 
would be greatest among you, let him be 
your minister" was "the law of Christ." 
" They were together and had all things 
common," even before Jesus' death. Yes, 
even then they had a "breaking of bread 
and prayers.'^ At the last moment, Jesus 
used the existent custom of their fraternal 
meal^ as a symbol of this principle of union 

» Mark 3 : 35. 

* From Luke 24 : 35 it appears that the custom of Jesus 
was known outside the circle of the Twelve. In John 6 : 
52-59 the sacrament of the body is even connected with the 
Galilean institution of the Agape, or church banquet, 
rather than with its sequel, the '' communion " of the Lord's 
cup. See below, p. 81. 

13 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

by mutual service, and asked to be remem- 
bered by it." He made them one body in 
him. But the word " church " never occurs 
in the gospels, save in two passages of 
Matthew, one textually doubtful, both re- 
cognized by all modern students as belong- 
ing to that element of Matthew which is 
latest and has the least claim to authenti- 
city.^ If Jesus used this Greek word at all, 
it could only be in its Old Testament sense, 
not in the sense it gained through the 
Pauline propaganda. In Matthew i8: i8 we 
have a mere rule of ecclesiastical proced- 
ure, cast in the form of a command of 
Jesus. In Matthew i6: 19 we have at best a 
prediction of the future, whose significance 
could only transpire after Jesus' death. In 
one of the oldest witnesses to the text, no 
reference to "the Church" appears. There 

* I Cor. II : 23-26. 

* On the passages Matt. i6 : 19 and 18 : 18, see chapter 
ii, p. 85. 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

was, then, a " brotherhood " even in Galilee. 
It had a principle of coherence. It even had 
certain rites and observances. But it had no 
sense of its real mission until it became con- 
scious of a work entrusted to it, together 
with power to fulfill that mission. Then it 
became the Church. Until the crucifixion, 
not one of that brotherhood dreamed of any 
other agency than Israel as charged with the 
mission of redemption. If they conceived 
Jesus in any sense or degree as the Re- 
deemer, it was only by virtue of being 
placed at the head of this Old Testament 
"church,'' the people of Israel." Not by 
any possibility could the idea arise in the 
disciples' minds of " founding " another 
Church, until this " church" had definitively 
rejected the Redeemer, and made it impos- 
sible to hope for the achievement of the 
divine design along the lines of nationalism. 

* The Greek translators of the Pentateuch use the word 
for the Mosaic commonwealth. 

15 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

However strong, therefore, the disposition 
to carry back the later institution into the 
period of Jesus' earthly life, and find au- 
thority for it there in his own sayings and 
example, nothing can be more certain than 
that "the Church,'' as we understand the 
word, is an outgrowth of Jesus' rejection 
and crucifixion, as these were reacted 
against by the faith and loyalty of his fol- 
lowers. 

In spite of the unavoidable tendency just 
referred to, to carry back later beliefs and 
institutions and justify them, by showing 
them present, at least potentially and in 
germ, in Jesus' earthly practice and teach- 
ing, it is remarkable to how large a degree 
the New Testament sources connect the 
origins of the faith with what happened 
after J esus^ death. 

We have noticed how the Pauline letters 
— by far our earliest and most authentic 
sources — make the doctrine of the risen and 

i6 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

spiritual Christ on principle the essence of 
the gospel. Those who fail to realize that 
the sign of apostleship was "power^'^ that 
the Christian missionary stood simply upon 
what he could do in the name of Christ, are 
astonished as they read PauPs letters to find 
the almost utter absence of any allusion to 
Jesus' earthly career. There is no mention 
of a single mighty work. There are a bare 
half-dozen references to his sayings. The 
whole substance of the message is that God 
commendeth his love to sinners by the 
death of his Son, whom he has revealed as 
such with power by the resurrection.' As 
many as are led by the Spirit are also sons. 
The Spirit has been given to those who 
have faith in Jesus. Its presence is mani- 
fest novj; why should they look back ? 
The narrative tradition is almost equally 

' Rom. 1 : 4. According to the Internati07ial Critical 
Commentary^ ad loc.^ the words *'with power" should be 
construed with the verb *' revealed," not with the noun 
*' the Son." 

17 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

emphatic in its testimony as to when the 
Church began. Mark inserts, it is true, a 
preliminary list of the Twelve Apostles, in 
the story of Galilee, and the gospels based 
on his follow his example. Matthew even 
attaches to this account of the " sending 
forth '' a full prediction of the propaganda 
in the world, the endowment with the Spirit, 
the persecution to be endured, the "witness 
[martyrza] before governors and kings,'' 
down to the " coming of the Son of man.'' ' 
But the very extent of the anticipation 
shows that the chapter on the " sending '' 
(Matt. lo) is not framed with a historical, 
but with a practical purpose. The writer 
only uses the form of narrative to exhibit 
and justify the apostolate as it exists in his 
own time. The Twelve are equipped and 
sent forth, but they never return. The evan- 
gelist leaves them still working in the world. 
The fourth gospel, following perhaps a hint 

^ Mark 3 : 13-19 ; 6 : 7-13 ; cf. Matt. 9 : 35-10 : 42. 

18 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

of the third/ finds a more appropriate place 
for the ^^ sending" in Jesus' farewell dis- 
course.^ All the gospels culminate with the 
great commission into all the world; for the 
purpose of their composition is to justify the 
message. Matthew himself atones for his 
measure of anticipation by repeating his ac- 
count of the " sending " at the close of his 
gospel. Mark's original ending is wanting; 
but its loss has been made good by appen- 
dices from two different sources. Both ap- 
pendices, the " longer " and the " shorter " 
ending, concern themselves mainly or ex- 
clusively with the equipment of the Twelve 
with power and authority, and their " send- 
ing-" ^ John's original conclusion is the 

' Luke 22 : 35-38. 

^ John 14-16.] Cf . especially John 13 : 16, 20 with Matt. 
10 : 24, 40 ; John 14 : 17 with Matt. 10 : 20 ; John 15 : 20 with 
Matt. 10 : 24 ; and John 15 : 26-16 : 4 with Matt. 10 : 16-23. 

^ Mark 16 : 14-20, based on Luke. The so-called ^' shorter 
ending" is based on Matthew. It reads as follows: "And 
they [the women] briefly reported all the message to Peter 
and those with him. And afterwards Jesus himself sent forth 

19 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

same equipment with authority and sending 
" even as the Father sent me.'^ ' " Luke," 
the one evangelist virho has actually related 
the story of the Church in its founding and 
propaganda, and who rests his "former 
treatise " on Mark, makes that treatise cul- 
minate with the command to the Twelve 
to " tarry in Jerusalem until '' they " be 
endued with power from on high." There- 
after he devotes his entire second treatise 
to the report of the " sending/' the equip- 
ment with the Spirit and power, and its 
results. The first item of his story is a new 
list of the Twelve independent of Mark, 
with the completion of the number.* 

through them from the east even to the west the holy and 
incorruptible proclamation of eternal salvation." 

* John 20: 21-23. 

* Luke 24 : 46-49; Acts i : 1-8, 13, 21-26. The Ebionites, 
or Palestinian Christians, of the second century employed 
a composite gospel, made up of our Synoptics combined with 
others unknown to us. It spoke in the name of the Twelve. 
''There came a man, Jesus by name, . . . who chose us." 
Then followed the list of names, ending, *'And thee Mat- 

20 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

If we ask what light on the founding of 
the Church we gain from the rite of initia- 
tion, we find that it is not pretended by any 
narrator that it was in use during Jesus' 
earthly life. The direction to baptize came 
to the disciples by revelation, after Jesus' 
death. Externally it was admittedly a loan 
from John the Baptist.' Its new Christian 
content, endowment with the Spirit, was a 
post-resurrection experience. Paul even 
went so far as to say that his " sending '' by 
Christ included no command to baptize.^ 

Our conclusion then must be that the be- 
ginning of the conscious life of the Church 
was its endowment with power through 

thew . . . I chose, and thou followedst me. You twelve 
then I will to be Apostles for witness to Israel." 

* Aphraates, the 'ancient jSyriac homilist, gives the true 
sense of John "3 : 26, when he says, '' For during all the time 
that he went about with his disciples, they were baptized 
only with the baptism of the priestly law, with the baptism 
at which John said, Repent of your sins." 

* On the origin of the institutions of the Church, see 
Chapter IV. 

21 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

conviction that God had raised Jesus from 
the dead. The apostolate is the witness of 
the resurrection. PauPs gospel and that of 
the Galilean apostles were as wide apart 
as contemporary gospels could possibly 
be. But in one point they came together. 
Whether it were he or they, thus it was 
preached, and thus men believed.' God had 
given assurance unto all men of repentance 
and forgiveness before the coming of Christ 
as Judge, '^ in that he hath raised him from 
the dead." "" An unconscious life the Church 
had while Jesus was with them in the flesh, 
and in later days the tendency grew stronger 
and stronger to carryback to the germs and 
intimations of that time whatever proved to 
be of divine worth in her subsequent devel- 
opment. " When Jesus was glorified, then 
remembered they" that these things had 

^ I Cor. 15 : i-ii. 

^ Acts 17:30-31. The accuracy of this representation 
of Paul's missionary preaching is confirmed by himself, 
I Thess. 1 : 9-10. 

22 



WHEN WAS THE CHURCH FOUNDED? 

happened thus and so/ Her life might be 
called but half-conscious during all the pe- 
riod covered by the Book of Acts, during 
which the gospel of Peter was endeavoring 
to adjust itself to the larger gospel of Paul. 
Perhaps it is still not fully conscious. But 
there is one definite critical moment which 
marks the founding of the Church, if by 
that we mean the emergence of the Chris- 
tian brotherhood into a consciousness of its 
separate existence and mission to the world. 
It is the "turning again'' of Simon Peter. 
Down to the moment when the risen Lord 
"appeared to Cephas/' the cause of Jesus 
never rose before the world as its day-star. 
Even as Israel's, it had set in utter dark- 
ness. Not a follower remained. There was 
nothing whatever to justify the hope that 
Jesus' words would not now "pass away" 
as scribe and priest were convinced they 
would — nothing but the prayer: "Simon, 

^ John 12 : i6. 

23 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. 
And when thou art turned again, stablish 
thy brethren.'' The rock foundation of the 
Church was the faith of Simon Peter. 



II 

PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

Strange as it may seem, every direct ac- 
count of the first manifestation of the risen 
Christ has disappeared from the records of 
the Church. In the great Epistles of Paul 
we are able to overleap half the chasm of 
obscurity which separates the earliest of our 
narratives from the actual event, and there, 
in First Corinthians, the most indubit- 
ably established and authentic of all docu- 
ments in the archives of Christianity, we 
find a summary of the current teaching of 
the Church on the resurrection. Whatever 
differences existed on other points, on the 
evidences of the resurrection all were 
agreed, says Paul. These evidences con- 
sisted of a series of manifestations of the risen 
Christ, first " to Cephas,'' " last of all to me 

25 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

also.'' The story of the visit of the women 
to the sepulchre, the empty tomb, the vision 
of angels, the manifestation of Jesus to Mary 
Magdalene and other women, does not ap- 
pear at all ! 

Gradually the relation is reversed. The 
story as it appears twenty years later in our 
earliest gospel narrative has lost already the 
account of the manifestation to Peter, though 
it still retains indubitable traces of having 
once contained it. In Canonical Mark (an 
adaptation of the original narrative) there 
now remains no manifestation of the risen 
Christ whatever. In place of it we are given 
a story of women having found the sepulchre 
empty on the third day after the crucifixion. 
A " vision of angels '' predicts, however, that 
his disciples ^^and Peter" 'zy/// see him in 
Galilee. But the sequel which related this 
momentous interview has been suppressed 
in its turn. In the most authentic manuscripts 
the Gospel ends with the frightened silence 

26 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

of the women, which accounts of course for 
this late appearance of the story. The women 
had been "afraid/' and so "said nothing to 
any man/' 

Second-century hands supply diverse 
endings to complete this obviously mutilated 
Gospel. One is based on Matthew 28: 1 6- 
20.' The other rests on John 20: ii-i8and 
Luke 24: 13-53, with a brief synopsis of 
Acts. 

Matthew enlarges still more on the story 
of the empty sepulchre. It had met oppo- 
sition, and this must be answered. We need 
not delay upon Matthew's added features 
of the guard and the earthquake. We are 
interested in the promised manifestation in 
Galilee to " his disciples and Peter." Mat- 
thew tells it. He even prepares the way for 
it by changing Mark's statement, about the 
women's fear preventing their delivering 
their message, into "And they departed 

^ See above, p. 19. 

27 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

quickly from the tomb with fear and great 
joy^ and ran to bring his disciples wordP 
This enables him to bring in the scene of 
Jesus' appearing to the eleven disciples in 
"t\iQ mountain where Jesus had appointed 
them/' and giving them the Apostolic Com- 
mission.' But there is no more indication 
in this vague and generalizing statement 
that the evangelist possessed the lost story 
of Jesus' appearance to ^^ Peter and the 
rest," than in the case of the second-cen- 
tury framers of endings for Mark. Indeed, 
there is clear evidence that he did not, 
but is only restoring by conjecture. After 
having changed in 28:8, the last verse of 
the authentic Mark as above described, 
he introduces in 28:9, 10 another perfectly 
independent, and now of course perfectly 
superfluous, explanation of how the dis- 
ciples met the appointment in spite of the 
women's terrified silence. "Jesus himself" 

' Matt. 28 : 16-20. 
28 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

appeared to the women, told them not to 
be afraid, but to deliver their message, and 
then reiterated it in the very words of the 
angel. Matthew, we see, had a predeces- 
sor in the attempt to mend the rents of 
Mark. 

But we have evidence from several in- 
dependent sources that the earlier form of 
the tradition did not bring the scattered 
disciples together by the word of the 
women. That word never got to them. 
Mark means it when he says, " They said 
nothing to any man because they were 
afraid.'' The recently discovered fragment 
of the "Gospel of Peter'' breaks off most 
tantalizingly at almost the very point of the 
mutilation of Mark; not, however, before 
it has made it perfectly clear that the dis- 
ciples remained in utter ignorance of the 
experiences of the women, and returned 
sorrowfully, in broken groups, to their fish- 
ing in Galilee. 

29 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

Our third Gospel is the most radical in 
its method of healing the mutilation of 
Mark, so as to account for the prompt 
founding of the Church by the Twelve in 
Jerusalem, in spite of the fact that at last 
accounts they had simply scattered as sheep 
when the Shepherd is smitten. Luke sim- 
ply denies the " scattering " in toto. They 
never fled at all. They remained in Jeru- 
salem. The angel did not say, " He goeth 
before you into Galilee, there shall ye see 
him.'' He (or rather " they ''; for Luke has 
two angels) said, " Remember ye not how 
he said while he was yet in Galilee^ that 
... he must rise again.'' Hence even 
those of the outer penumbra of discipleship 
who sought to leave Jerusalem, were turned 
back. There were no manifestations in 
Galilee. Jesus commissioned the eleven 
disciples in Jerusalem, and bade them stay 
there and make it headquarters for the 
work of evangelization. This is restoration 

30 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

with sweeping strokes of a large brush. 
But it does not obliterate the older lines. 
More of these remain, in fact, in Luke's 
than in any other Gospel. He fails to explain 
how Peter, who at last accounts ' had lin- 
gered longest and fallen deepest, is all at 
once the leader and master spirit of all. 
Nay, Luke makes "the eleven'' say in so 
many words to Cleopas and his companion, 
as they come in from their experience at 
Emmaus, " The Lord is risen indeed, and 
hath appeared unto SimonP He has 
embodied a direct reference to that funda- 
mental first manifestation "to Cephas," and 
yet has left out the story of it! 

We have in Luke even distincter traces 
than these. Mark made the rallying of the 
disciples in Galilee a work accomplished 
by Jesus' personal intervention as chief 
Shepherd of the flock. Jesus promised that 
after they had been "scattered" by the 

^ Luke 22 : 54-62. 

31 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

stroke which fell upon him, he would " go 
before them into Galilee/' Luke records 
instead a prayer of Jesus, which would not 
be recorded if at some later time it had not 
been regarded as fulfilled by the event; and 
this prayer commits the work of rallying 
the scattered flock to the under-shepherd, 
Peter.' The counter statement to Jesus' 
prediction at the Last Supper of the sifting 
of Satan which Peter was to undergo is the 
statement, '' But I have made supplication 
for thee, Simon, that thy faith fail not : and 
do thou, when once thou hast turned again, 
stablish thy brethren." This ancient frag- 
ment is all the more significant from the 
cancellation, by the evangelist who em- 
bodies it, of the story which gave it perti- 
nence. 

The latest of all the Gospels was in its 
original form the most completely diverted 
from what we may designate the Galilean 

* Luke 22 : 24-32. 

32 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

form of the tradition, the most consistently 
committed to the later, Jerusalemic, form. 
If we take the Gospel of John -without the 
appendix (ch. 21), it excludes all the 
story of dispersion and return from Galilee 
even more completely than Luke. It de- 
velops the trait of the women reporting the 
empty tomb to the eleven, and Peter's veri- 
fication of it, at the greatest length and in 
its own special interest.' It combines with 
this, in similar elaboration, the feature em- 
bodied by Matthew of Jesus' appearance to 
the women to counteract their fear, and 
upon this it brings in as culmination the 
Apostolic Commission.^ On appointment 
made through Mary Magdalene, Jesus 
meets the disciples in Jerusalem, breathes 
upon them the Spirit, clothes them with au- 
thority to forgive sins, and sends them forth 
into the world even as the Father had sent 

' With Luke 24 : 10-12, cf. John 20 : i-io. 
* John 20 : 11-18, 19-23. 

33 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

him. The ascension has preceded." With 
the appearance^ the clothing with authority 
to ^^ bind and loose/' and the " sending/' 
there remains no more to tell. The gospel 
is complete, and receives its appropriate 
envoi in verses 30-31. 

It is a new writer, with a new motive and 
a new conception, who adds the appendix 
(ch. 21). Here the eleven are not together, 
but only a group of seven, Peter in the lead. 
They are not in Jerusalem, but back in 
Galilee, engaged in their old occupation of 
fishing. They have received no " sending,'' 
have not been commissioned, have heard of 
no appointment through the women, are 
taken with absolute surprise and awe as 

^ This is implied in verse 17. We are to understand that 
Mary sees Jesus at the very moment of his ascension (verse 
14). It takes place on the day of the resurrection as in Ep. of 
Barn,^ xv: 8, 9 and Ev. Petri^ x: 38-42. We so understand 
Luke 24 : 51 ; Acts i : 6-1 1 also. Others think there is contra- 
diction between Luke 24 : 51 and Acts i : 6-1 1. See Bacon, 
'' The Ascension in Luke and Acts," Expositor^ March, 
1909. 

34 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

the thought dawns upon ^^the disciple 
whom Jesus loved/' "It is the Lord.'' Peter 
has not yet been forgiven and reinstated; he 
has yet to receive a threefold warning for 
his threefold denial, and then to be charged 
with the care of the flock, until he be able 
at last to "follow" as he had sought to do 
and failed/ This sudden reappearance of 
the discarded Galilean form of the tradi- 
tion, after the close of the Johannine Gos- 
pel proper, can be accounted for in but one 
way. It is a "survival." The old account 
of Peter's "turning again" in Galilee and 
"stablishing his brethren," the original 
manifestation "to Cephas," reasserts its 
rights against a too presumptuous rival. 
To obtain general circulation for this late 
Gospel, its final editors had to make larger 
concessions than its text affords to the his- 
toric claims of Peter's leadership. 

We have traversed the whole story of 

^ John 21 : 1-14, 15-17, 18-19; cf. 13 : S^S^. 

35 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

the Church's tradition in its changing forms. 
We have seen how it gave account of that 
great reaction which turned the tide of de- 
feat and disaster into the victory of faith, 
beginning with Paul's account of the mani- 
testations. The risen Christ appeared first 
"to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to 
above five hundred brethren at once . . . 
then to James, then to all the apostles, and 
last of all to me also." We have seen the 
coming in upon this primitive common 
gospel of the special tradition of the wo- 
men's discovery of the empty tomb and 
their " vision of angels." At first it is most 
modest, almost apologetic. Then it devel- 
ops in many forms. At last it threatens to 
uproot entirely the story of Peter's turning 
again in Galilee and stablishing his breth- 
ren. Of course. What could be so grateful 
to the growing desire for the concrete and 
tangible as the story of an actual disap- 
pearance of the body ? What could be more 

36 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

unacceptable to the Church's growing 
pride in its great apostles, than the old 
story how "they all forsook him and fled/' 
how they were scattered each one to his 
own, how not one of them had left a spark 
of hope or courage, or even bethought him 
of Jesus' faith in God, until " he appeared 
to Cephas." 

The story of Peter's turning again has 
been lost; and the loss was not accidental. 
We have too many varied efforts to repair 
the mutilation of the fundamental record, 
too many evidences of what later hands 
preferred to the ancient story, to imagine 
it to have been lost by simultaneous acci- 
dent out of all existing records. No; the 
Jerusalemic story of the empty tomb and 
women's vision of angels has taken its 
place. But whether we give credence to 
this later tradition or not, nothing can be 
more certain than that it had nothing 
whatever to do with the real reaction, the 

37 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

actual historic dawn of the resurrection 
faith. In PauPs time it is either unknown 
or purposely ignored. When it does at last 
appear, it does not claim to have come to 
light in time to affect in any way the ac- 
tual "turning again" and Establishing of 
the brethren." That was acknowledged to 
have been the work of Peter. So too as to 
the character of the manifestations. In 
First Corinthians Paul begins the resurrec- 
tion record with the manifestation to Peter, 
and closes it with that to himself. In Gala- 
tians he compares his "apostleship" with 
Peter's, and declares that God who " mani- 
fested his Son in " him, " energizing in 
him" thus "unto an apostleship of the 
Gentiles," " energized in like manner in 
Peter unto the apostleship of the circum- 
cision." ' To neither one was the revela- 
tion from " flesh and blood," but from the 
Father in heaven. It was not the mere 

1 Gal. i: i6; 2:8. 

38 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

" wonder '' of a vacant tomb, but the ap- 
prehension of a living, spiritual, glorified 
Lord. 

Fortunately these obscure references of 
Paul to the revelation of God's Son to Pe- 
ter are not our only sources of information. 
Remembering the disposition of the later 
Church to carry back into the full daylight 
of Jesus' earthly career all that belonged 
to its established faith and institutions, we 
shall find, in addition to the passages from 
the Gospels already considered, more than 
one clew to the nature of Peter's revela- 
tion, Peter's failure and turning again, Pe- 
ter's faith, once lost, but afterwards made 
the foundation rock of the Church. These 
will prove that the disappearance of the 
ancient story of how " the Lord appeared 
unto Simon" was a disappearance in form 
rather than in substance. As to form, we 
can only approximate the actual story. We 
may be sure from the hints that remain that 

39 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

its scene was the Sea of Galilee. Peter, with 
some of his old partners, had returned to 
his fishing. They were not looking for a re- 
turn of their crucified Master. They were 
" weeping and lamenting and grieving,'' as 
^^each one returned to his own home " ; and 
Simon and Andrew his brother '' took up 
their nets and went away to the sea, having 
with them Levi the son of Alpheus,'' and 
perhaps others.' Then came the great revul- 
sion. Jesus had called Peter there, on that 
shore, in those same surroundings, to " catch 
men." One form of the story of the new call 
relates that in the dusk of dawn, after a night 
of fruitless toil, the disciple saw Jesus on the 
shore, and the Master symbolized the new 
and greater work he was now to do by a 
miraculous draught of fishes.^ Luke, who, 
as we saw, has cancelled all this Galilean 
episode, could^find no place for Peter's sec- 

' The quotations are from the fragment of the Gospel of 
Peter 14 : 58-60. John 21 : i-ii. 

40 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

ond call, save as he carried it back in 5 : 
i-ii, and connected it with Mark's nar- 
ration of the first. The connection is lame 
enough, for the pathos of Peter's repentant 
cry, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful 
man, O Lord,'' is lost. Moreover, the intro- 
duction of "James and John which were 
partners with Simon" in verse 10, is almost 
grotesque, for they have no part in the in- 
terview. It is only " Simon " to whom Jesus 
speaks, and whom he calls and comforts. 
But we may take this Lukan adaptation of 
the story of Peter's restoration as typical of 
many. It reveals how the substance was re- 
tained throughout the changes of form. We 
know that the "manifestation" of the risen 
Lord to Peter after he had returned in shame 
and despair to his fishing was in its signifi- 
cance equivalent to Paul's. It had the same 
relation to Peter's individual sense of sin 
and despair. It was also essentially a mani- 
festation "in" him, whatever the extent of 

41 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

its objectivity, a vision of Jesus, shown to 
be the Son of God with power by the resur- 
rection. This is suggested by PauPs com- 
parisons of it to his own.' Finally, it was 
a renewal of Peter's call. It was an apostle- 
ship, a "sending." Peter was to take up 
again in Jesus' name the old-time message 
of repentance, faith, and forgiveness — but 
with what wonder and power of new mean- 
ing ! 

There is another point of attachment in 
our Gospels besides that of Peter's call for 
the story of the final triumph of his faith. 
At Csesarea Philippi, after Jesus had been 
driven out of Galilee and was setting his face 
steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem to cham- 
pion the cause of the " little ones " at the 
very seat of priestly usurpation, something 
brought a great rebuke upon Peter. It was 
either the suggestion of messianic aspira- 
tions in general, or at least the suggestion 

» I Cor. 15:5,8; Gal. 2:8. 
42 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

of it in too worldly a sense. Later Christian 
faith, carrying back its own origin to the 
earliest attainable date, laid hold of this as 
its beginning. Even Mark's earlier form of 
the story, which has nothing of Matthew's 
development of it into a revelation of the 
Messiahship, follows it nevertheless with 
the account of a "vision'' or "revelation," 
in which " Peter and they that were with 
him " were taught by a voice from heaven 
what is the true nature and calling of Jesus. 
He is the glorified Lord into the likeness of 
whose body of glory we all, as Paul taught, 
must be " metamorphosed." ' We are not 
surprised to find the evangelist connecting 
the significance of this story with "the ris- 
ing again from the dead," nor even that, 
in the recently discovered "Revelation of 
Peter," the incident is placed after the resur- 

' Mark 9 : 2-10. The expression, *' he was transfigured," 
is identical with that used by Paul in II Cor. 3 ; 8. On the 
origin and significance of the Transfiguration '' vision" see 
Bacon, Beginnings of Gospel Story ^ pp. 114 £f. 

43 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

rection. It is the risen, the glorified Christ, 
the Son of God with power, who is revealed 
in it to " Peter and them that were with him.'' 
The connection with the Rebuke of Peter at 
Caesarea Philippi is merely editorial.' 

If, then, with Matthew's version of Peter's 
Confession of Jesus as the Christ at Csesarea 

* In Matt. 14 : 22-33 ^^e same evangelist who supple- 
ments Mark's Confession of Peter with an ordination of him 
as the Foundation of the Church, supplements the Markan 
story of the Breaking of the Bread and Walking on the Sea 
with an undertaking of Peter to tread the stormy waves 
with^Jesus, a failure of his faith, rescue by the personal in- 
tervention of the Lord, and return of Peter in company 
with Jesus to the distressed disciples, who " worshipped him 
saying. Of a truth thou art the Son of God." For many 
convergent reasons we are convinced that this story merely 
reflects in symbolic form the undertaking of Peter at the 
" last supper " to go with Jesus *' unto prison and death," 
the subsequent failure of his faith, *' when he saw that the 
winds were boisterous," his restoration by the manifestation 
to him of the risen Christ, and the Establishment of his breth- 
ren in faith in the Son of God." We should thus have in 
allegorical form a surviving narrative of the " appearance to 
Peter." Space, however, is lacking for the adequate proof 
of the theory, which'is accordingly here presented in outline 
and as a possibility only, without embodying it in the text. 

44 



PETER THE FOUNDATION ROCK 

Philippi, we find interwoven a parallel to 
PauPs declaration of his apostleship, not 
from " flesh and blood/' but by revelation 
from the Father of Christ as the Son of God; 
and find together with this a declaration 
that the Church is to be founded upon this 
Rock, and that it shall triumph over the 
gates of Hades which had closed upon the 
crucified Leader; and if, further, we find 
Peter now clothed with the authority to for- 
give sins, the apostolic power of "binding 
and loosing" which shortly after appears as 
a prerogative of the Church,' and in other 
sources forms the essence of the great Com- 
mission,'' we shall not be greatly surprised. 
We shall see in Matthew's story of the 
Founding of the Church simply one more 
example of that carrying back of later faiths 
to the earlier time of which the Gospels are 
full. We shall realize that here, too, we are 

' Matt. 16:19= iS: 18. 

* John 20 : 23 ; Luke 24 : 47 ; Matt. 28 : 19 ; Mark 16 : 16. 

45 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

dealing with that one great crisis out of 
which our religion was born, the triumph of 
that humble Galilean's faith in the Master 
whose call to be a fisher of men could never 
be silenced in his ears. The new faith found 
embodiment when Simon Peter "turned 
again and stablished his brethren." 



Ill 

THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

If we follow again the regular historian^s 
method of judging later narratives by ear- 
lier and more authentic documents, we 
shall resort again to the great and undis- 
puted Pauline Epistles in seeking to answer 
the question: What was the essential con- 
tent of that faith in Jesus which made 
Christians otherwise so diverse in training, 
in knowledge, and in religious experience, 
as Paul and the Galilean apostles, feel that 
nevertheless they were " one body in Christ, 
having one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
one Father of all,'' one all-pervading, all- 
vivifying Spirit ? ' 

There are several instances in which 
Paul seems to be voicing the watchword 

'Eph. 4: 4-6. 

47 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

of the common faith. Thus in Romans lo: 9 
he summarizes " the word of faith which we 
preach'' as follows: "If thou shalt confess 
with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt 
believe in thy heart that God raised him 
from the dead, thou shalt be saved/' Again, 
in defending the "ministry of the new 
covenant," he introduces a poetically beau- 
tiful allusion to his own vision of the risen 
Jesus, a " new creation" of the spirit, with 
this explanation : " For we (ministers of the 
new covenant) preach not ourselves, but 
Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your 
servants for Jesus' sake."' Similarly, in 
warning the Corinthians against misleading 
" spirits," he lays down as a general prin- 
ciple of discrimination that "no man can 
say, ^ Jesus is Lord' but in the Holy 
Spirit."* Finally, in his swan-song of fare- 
well to the beloved church in Philippi, 

^ II Cor. 4 : 5-6. 
2 1 Cor. 12 : 3. 

48 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

pouring out every entreaty to them to be 
united in " the mind which was also in 
Christ Jesus/' he declares that it was be- 
cause of the disposition of self-denying ser- 
vice exemplified in Jesus' life and death, 
that God " gave unto him the name which 
is above every name/' making even angels 
and archangels " confess that he is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father." It is need- 
less to multiply further instances to prove 
that Paul attached to this confession that 
"Jesus is Lord " a fundamental significance. 
One of the earliest embodiments of faith 
in the risen Jesus is certainly the Danielle 
title "Son of man," i. e., the Judge and ruler 
of the world awaited in apocalyptic expec- 
tation. Certain phenomena of the Gospels 
have even led scholars to declare that this 
was "the favorite self-designation of Jesus." 
For ourselves we cannot share this view. 
It rhymes but ill with the predominantly 
ethical and religious note of the Sermon on 

49 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

the Mount. While we need have no doubt 
that Jesus, like John the Baptist, like his 
fellow Jews, anticipated the coming of this 
transcendental Being, the notion that he 
looked forward to fulfilling this office in his 
own person is not in line with his teachings 
generally; for in these the sonship of the 
many, not the Judgeship of the one, holds 
the keynote. Still greater obstacles are met 
in the earliest records of all. Had this title 
expressed to Paul the fundamental doctrine 
of Christ's person, he could have made it 
intelligible to his Greek hearers. It is not 
more difficult to translate from its Aramaic 
form than "Messiah" or "election." The 
words "abba," "amen," "maranatha," are 
taken over without translation. It is not, then, 
because the expression " Son of man " was 
not adaptable to PauPs work of evangeliza- 
tion that it never occurs in his writings or 
in any New Testament author outside the 
four evangelists. It is a different title which 

SO 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

in the epistles expresses the dignity con- 
ferred by God upon him whom he had 
declared to be the Son of God by the resur- 
rection from the dead. "Jesus is Lord'' 
was the primitive confession. And ^^Lord'' 
was not a substitute for some other " favor- 
ite self-designation of Jesus " in the Ara- 
maic. It was itself transferred in the origi- 
nal tongue, ^^/^translated, in such primeval 
watchwords of the Church as Maran-athay 
"our Lord cometh." To Stephen, con- 
demned by unjust judges, the vision of the 
risen Christ may well have been a vision 
of "the heavens opened and the Son of man 
standing on the right hand of God "; but to 
the despairing love of repentant Peter it 
will have been, as to Saul of Tarsus, the 
vision of a glorified Leader and Deliverer 
of lost humanity. The title which the 
Church disputes in bloody conflict with 
Roman emperors, with heathen demi-gods 
and divinities, and with Jewish angels 

51 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

and archangels, is "Lordship/' not the 
mere apocalyptic dignity of the Son of 
man. 

If now we turn from the Epistles of Paul 
to the narrative of Luke, we shall find deep 
harmony on this fundamental point. Luke, 
as we saw, has cancelled the humiliating 
interlude of the flight of the apostles to 
Galilee after the crucifixion. Instead of the 
formal scene in the first chapter of Acts, of 
Jesus' visible ascension to heaven after 
havingdelivered the Apostolic Commission, 
a scene which is immediately followed by 
completion of the number of the twelve on 
the Mosaic plan of casting lots, we must 
accept the successive incidents enumerated 
by Paul in I Corinthians 15: 5-7. After the 
"turning again" of Simon came the Estab- 
lishing" of his "brethren." The "manifesta- 
tion " to Cephas was followed, still in Gal- 
ilee, if we may trust the remaining traces 
of primitive story, by a manifestation " to 

52 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

the twelve.'' Is Paul here speaking of a 
group formed by Jesus during his lifetime 
for missionary purposes ? Then we do need 
the explanation Luke endeavors to furnish 
of the filling of the traitor's place. We 
should expect Paul to say, as Luke does, 
"the eleven." But tradition varies widely as 
to the numbers and names, and the inten- 
tions of Jesus in forming his inner circle of 
disciples, to which we now find assigned this 
symbolic number. There are phenomena 
which to the historical critic suggest that 
here too the specific number twelve' is car- 
ried back from the later to the earlier time. 
Paul means by "the twelve" the group 
formed at this time out of the number of 
those who had companied with Jesus, be- 
ginning from the baptism of John, a group 
now brought together, perhaps for the first 
time, under the leadership of Peter. They 

* Rev. 21 : 14 places the symbolic significance beyond 
doubt. 

53 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

too received a " manifestation.'' What steps 
they took thereafter we may infer from the 
numbers mentioned in the next " manifesta- 
tion.'' "More than five hundred brethren" 
were gathered together at one time. The 
place can scarcely have been other than 
Jerusalem, where the Church felt from the 
first that it must await the Lord's return. 
The occasion is reasonably conjectured to 
have been no other than that "Lord's day" 
of Pentecost to which the origins of the 
conscious life of the Church are carried 
back in Acts. To the five hundred also 
there was granted a "manifestation" of the 
risen Lord. If it was in Jerusalem at Pen- 
tecost, this manifestation was accompanied 
with the "outpouring of the Spirit" in phe- 
nomena of " tongues," " prophesying," and 
other "spiritual gifts." Upon it followed 
two "manifestations" to special functiona- 
ries in the brotherhood, "to James," the 
Lord's brother, whose figure already in the 

54 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

Pauline Epistles, begins to overtop even 
that of Peter, — and " to all the apostles.'' 
These latter in Pauline phraseology form a 
much larger group than " the twelve." ' 
What their function was, and why it was 
needful that they should have " seen the 
Lord,'' ^ hardly requires explanation. Such 
is the story of the first organization for pro- 
pagation of the new faith, as we restore it 
from the earliest allusions. 

Luke's recasting of the story to suit his 
fundamental cancellation, makes wide dif- 
ferences in form between the Pauline re- 
cord and his own. The ^^idealization" which 
it has undergone at his hands is matter of 
universal admission among scholars. But 
the fundamental elements of his story, 
especially those which, like the speech of 
Peter in Acts 2: 14-36, embody concep- 
tions at variance with the more elaborate, 
artificial, and thaumaturgic representations 

* Rom. 16 ; 7 ; I Thess. 2:6. * I Cor. 9:1. 

55 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

of the framework/ exhibit precisely that 
elemental " gospel '' which we have traced 
in Paul. Just as in Ephesians 4: 4-16 the 
" gifts of the Spirit " are appealed to as 
proof of Jesus' ascension to a seat of supreme 
and heavenly authority " at the right hand 
of God/' so the phenomena of " tongues/' 
" prophesyings/' "wonders and signs" are 
appealed to in Acts 2: 14-36, to prove that 
Jesus has experienced that which was writ- 
ten in the Psalms concerning his being 
raised from the grave, and seated on the 
throne of glory, "from henceforth expect- 
ing till his enemies be made the footstool 
of his feet."" 
In every one of the three quotations from 

* Notoriously the "prophesying" and '' glossolaly " of 
Acts 2 : 15-18, 26; II : 15 are the well-known psychological 
phenomena so abundantly recognizable in I Cor. 14, not the 
polyglot utterance understood by the compiler in vv. 4-1 1. 

* The use of Ps. 1 10 : i in Mark 12 : 35-37 as part of Jesus' 
refutation of the scribes seems to the present writer later 
than that in Paul and Acts. See Beginnings of Gospel 
Story, 1909, p. 175. 

56 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

Scripture on which the reported discourse 
of Peter is based, it is the Lordship given 
to Jesus which forms the climax. The pro- 
phesyings, the wonders in heaven and signs 
on earth, are tokens of the promised "Day 
of the Lord." Their purpose is to lead men 
.near and far to " call upon the name of the 
Lord/' and thus be saved. ^ The "glad 
hearts'' and "rejoicing tongues" are those 
of which David spoke when he " foresaw 
the Lord before his face/' and spoke of 
God's deliverance of the soul of his Holy 
One from the corruption of the under- 
world. 

That which the people now "see and 
hear" is the proof that God has raised up 
Jesus to his " right hand," to be " the Lord" 
of David, and that he has " received of the 
Father " the promised Spirit of prophecy, the 
expected "gift of God "of the messianic 

^ Paul employs the same Scripture (Joel 2 : 33) in Rom. 
10:13. 

57 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

times." The climax and peroration of the 
speech is this: "Let all the house of Is- 
rael therefore know assuredly, that God 
hath made him both Lord and Christ, this 
Jesus whom ye crucified.'' The Galilean 
followers of Jesus have seen him glorified, 
they are experiencing the Spirit and the 
gifts, and therefore know him to be that 
Lord whom David foresaw at God's right 
hand. Their hope is that if Israel "turns 
again," their sins may be blotted out, that 
so there may come seasons of refreshing 
from the presence of the Lord, and that he 
may send the Christ who hath been ap- 
pointed for them, even Jesus, whom the 
heaven must receive until the time of the 
restoration of all things. Such is the bear- 
ing of the "Petrine speeches" of Acts. 

^ Joel 2 : 28f. ; cf. Num. ii : 29. In the Wisdom literature 
the gift of God in the messianic age is " the spirit of wis- 
dom " {Enoch 42 : 2 ; 48 : i ; 49 : 1-3 ; 51 : 3 ; 61 : 7, 11). In 
the legalistic literature it is the spirit of obedience to the 
law. {Jubilees i : 24-26). 

58 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

This, then, was the resurrection faith of 
Peter. God had raised up unto Israel one 
from among their brethren to be his Ser- 
vant, sending him to bless them in turning 
every one of them away from his iniquities. 
Jesus' earthly career had fulfilled the pro- 
phecy of Moses : " One from among your 
brethren like unto me.'' Now the Servant 
had been " made both Lord and Christ." 

In the light of these data let us return 
to our first question, and ask again: What 
was the essential content of that faith in 
Jesus which made all Christians one from 
the beginning despite all differences, and 
infused them with the tremendous dynamic 
that made conquest of the world ? Surely we 
shall not find it in the mere revivification 
of an inanimate body. Mere return from 
the tomb of a lost friend and leader, how- 
ever miraculous, however gladdening, could 
not have brought this gospel of the risen 
Lord. The revelation to Peter and them 

59 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

that were with him was that Jesus was glo^ 
rified. He was not in the underworld with 
the rest of the dead. He was not on the 
earth with the rest of the Hving. He was in 
heaven at the right hand of God, seated on 
the messianic " throne of glory/' whence he 
should come again after the Great Repent- 
ance as the promised Christ. The scriptural 
proof may well be a later reenforcement, 
but the faith itself came first by " manifes- 
tation '' of the risen Jesus, and this manifes- 
tation was such in character as to make the 
Scripture applicable : " The Lord said unto 
my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand till I 
make thine enemies the footstool of thy 
feet.'' 

We have seen how throughout Pauline 
Epistles and narrative as well this resurrec- 
tion faith is crystallized in the confession, 
Jesus is Lord. We misconceive this primi- 
tive resurrection faith if we approach it 
with the preconceptions begotten of cen- 

60 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

turies of carrying back into Jesus' earthly 
life of things subsequently believed. What 
to us has become the period of the gospel 
was to Paul, and even to the Galilean dis- 
ciples, the period preliminary to the gospel 
— what the Germans call its Vorgeschichte. 
Therefore Paul scarcely ever refers to it, 
and even those who had experienced it 
with Jesus never recorded it. The gospel 
began with the resurrection. The revela- 
tion given to Peter and ^^the twelve" was 
not that Jesus had been the Christ, or had 
been the Lord. They realized now that he 
had been the Son of God, as he had taught 
others to be. The revelation showed that 
he nvas now " the Lord/' and the inference 
from it was that he nvotdd be " the Christ/' 
when he returned from " the heavens." 

This faith in Jesus as Lord implied on 
the one side the message of Jesus' earthly 
career. Sonship was a result of being "con- 
formed to the image of God's Son" — a 

6i 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

result no otherwise to be attained than by 
having within "the mind which was also in 
Christ Jesus." On the other side this obtain- 
ing the mind of Christ was a work not of 
human but of divine power. It was a "meta- 
morphosis " into the likeness of the glori- 
fied Lord, through the indwelling Spirit, 
whose presence was already manifest. They 
who " confessed with the mouth Jesus as 
Lord/' must walk by the same rule, must 
assume his yoke, must learn of him, must 
"become imitators of God as beloved chil- 
dren, even as Christ also had loved them 
and given himself a sacrifice for them." ' 
They who "believed in their heart that 
God had raised him from the dead " were 
also assured that a sanctification and a glo- 
rification awaited his "brethren" like that 
which God had given him.^ Thus the ex- 
emplification in Jesus' life and teaching of 

' Eph. 5: 1,2. 

* Rom. 8:11, 29, 30; 10: 9; II Cor. 3: 18; Phil. 3: 21. 

62 



THE CONFESSION OF JESUS AS LORD 

the principle of self-denying service, fol- 
lowed by the manifestation of him as Son 
of God with power, when " God highly ex- 
alted him and gave to him the name which 
is above every name," supplied a complete 
gospel, a perfect revelation of human duty 
and destiny. It was in the assured posses- 
sion of that common two-fold gospel, the 
gospel of Jesus and the gospel about 
Jesus, that Paul could write: ^^ There is 
one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye 
were called in one hope of your calling; 
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God 
and Father of all, who is over all, and 
through all and in all." 



IV 

BAPTISM AND THE BREAKING OF BREAD 

We have seen how a comparison of the 
Pauline Epistles with the narrative sources 
enables us to clarify our conception of the 
historical process by which the first brother- 
hood of believers in Jesus as the Son of 
God was formed ; we have also learned 
something from it regarding the contents 
of the piumitive common faith. Our study 
of the Founding of the Church will not be 
complete without a review of the same 
sources, after the same method, in answer 
to the question: What were the primitive 
institutions of the Church, and how did 
they originate ? 

What has been already said may suffice 
regarding the very earliest development of 
Church organization. God had first of all 

64 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

" energized in Peter unto an apostolate of 
the circumcision/' even as in Paul "unto 
an apostolate to the Gentiles.'' The choice 
of "the twelve/' however effected, the 
choice of James, the choice of " all the 
apostles," had been at least confirmed, 
perhaps originated, by the act of God. The 
risen Christ had been " manifested " to 
them. In Ephesians 4: 11-16, as in all the 
earlier writings, it is this divine side which 
occupies the whole field of vision in the ap- 
pointment of every kind of church officer. 
The appointments were, as church historians 
say, charismatic; i. e., men were endowed 
by the Spirit with the "gift" for this or 
that form of service. The Holy Ghost " set 
them apart for the work" whereunto He 
had called them. Later the mechanism of 
human forms of government comes more 
and more into view. Civic methods are 
imitated in the Greek churches, synagogue 
methods in the Syrian. Democracy still 

65 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

prevails everywhere, because brotherhood 
and the rule of service were fundamental in 
Christian thought; but officialism increases. 
The author of Acts presents from some 
ancient source in cc. 6-8 what he regards 
as the origin of the diaconate, the second- 
ary order which Paul in Philippians i: i 
associates with the ^^ bishops," or "over- 
seers.'' In Luke's day one of the princi- 
pal functions of " deacons '' was to " serve 
tables," providing for the daily common 
meal of the brotherhood, as tradition says 
Judas had done for the twelve, ' and dis- 
tributing to the " widows." The " widows '' 
themselves in First Timothy 5: 3-16 have 
become the almoners. Hence the represen- 
tations of Acts 6: 1-4. But the source em- 
ployed by Luke in Acts 6-8 does not think 
of " the seven " as " deacons," or as " serving 
tables." They are "evangelists"; such by 
name in the primitive passage. Acts 21:8, 

' John 13 : 29. 

(i6 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

such in practice everywhere. So in all the 
matter of organization. As the growth of 
the Church required it, the Spirit furnished 
continually new ^^ joints of supply.'' The 
"ministry of the new covenant" was not 
" of the letter ''; it was not bound to ancient 
forms, it made itself new wine skins for 
the new wine. Elders, bishops, deacons, 
"widows,'' were instrumentalities devel- 
oped as needed. The earliest time knew 
only "spiritual gifts" exercised for the 
common good. ' 

But besides the common faith and the 
common organization we find already in 
the Pauline Epistles two institutions, both 
of which are spoken of as dating from the 
very beginnings, one of which is declared 
to have been commanded by " the Lord " 
himself. They are, of course, the institu- 
tions of baptism and the "breaking of 
bread." Next to the " one Lord " and " one 

' I Cor. 12-14. 

67 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

faith/' in PauPs paean of the unity of the 
Church, comes the " one baptism/' The 
breaking of bread was by its very name a 
"communion " of the body of Christ. How, 
then, did these rites originate; and what 
did the Church mean by them ? 

Baptism is to Paul always symbolical of 
the believer's death and resurrection with 
Christ. Immersion as the usual form (per- 
haps not the only one) is implied by the 
comparisons, " we are buried with him in 
baptism," "we were baptized unto Christ 
as Israel was baptized unto Moses in the 
Red Sea." ' That the candidates were as a 
rule adults (perhaps not always) is implied 
in the signification. This includes always 
self-surrender, dedication. But we are ex- 
pressly told that Christ did not baptize. It 
was a rite taken up by the Church after 

^ I. e., we came under the leadership of Christ as Israel 
came under the leadership of Moses in passing out through 
the Red Sea from the darkness and bondage of Egypt into 
the light and liberty of the desert wandering. 

68 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

the resurrection, and to Paul was one of the 
things which had been merely adopted for 
their intrinsic value, not imposed by author- 
ity. ' When and why was it taken up ? 

All forms of the Apostolic Commission 
emphasize the fact that it was a sending 
with authority to proclaim \k\^ forgiveness 
of sins. Two of the latest attach to this 
Commission, as part of the sending itself, 
from Jesus^ own mouth, the command to 
baptize/ We see from Paul, that it can be 
called a command of Jesus only as a con- 
viction " borne in " upon the earliest group 
of believers might be invested with the 
sanction of ^Hhe spirit of Jesus." ^ But even 
these later representations suffice to show 
that baptism was adopted at the very start 
as the rite of initiation into the brotherhood. 

'I Cor. 1:17. 

* Matt. 28 : 19 ; Mark 16:16. 

3 In Acts 16 : 7 we have an example of warnings through 
church " prophets " (cf. 20: 23; 21: 11) being referred to 
*' the spirit of Jesus." 

69 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

The reason lies in the very fact that what 
was sought in the new faith was the for- 
giveness of sins. 

The priority of John the Baptist in the 
introduction of this rite is undisputed. The 
whole movement of Jesus to gather the lost 
sheep of Israel was begun "after John was 
shut up in prison.'' Jesus himself, and prob- 
ably many of his disciples, had been bap- 
tized of John. He gave it as his authority 
when challenged for his right to proclaim 
"sonship'' to the publicans and sinners, 
gave it as a sign " from heaven,'' that these 
had repented at "the baptism of John." 
And John's rite was indeed such a reversion 
to first principles of the old prophetic reli- 
gion: " What doth Jehovah require of thee 
but to do justly and to love mercy, and to 
walk humbly with thy God?" It shows its 
anti-legalistic character by turning away 
from the whole apparatus of temple, and syn- 
agogue, and law, to seek a new mode of ap- 

70 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

proach to God in the symbolism of nature it- 
self. The baptism of John had been the voice 
of God saying : " Wash you, make you clean, 
put away the evil of your doings from be- 
fore mine eyes." And when the publicans 
and sinners obeyed it, Jesus considered 
them nearer to doing the will of the Father 
than the sons who said, " I go, Sir,'' and 
went not. ' He did not stop there. He be- 
lieved that the sincere and penitent accept- 
ance of the Father's terms implied the 
bestowal to the uttermost of the Father's 
blessing. Therefore when John was impris- 
oned, Jesus came into the thickest crowds 
of half-heathen, " Galilee of the Gentiles," 
and gathered the scattered sheep. And he 
not only bade them " Repent, for the king- 
dom of God is at hand," but when they 
did repent, he added the assurance, " Son, 
daughter, thy sins are forgiven"; and to 
the company that followed him : " Fear not, 

"^ Cf. Matt. 21 ; 23-32. 

71 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure 
to give you the kingdom." This was the 
work that had to recommence after the floci 
had once more been scattered, and Peter 
had gone back to his fishing. It was not to 
be expected that Peter would begin by 
baptizing all his fellow disciples who had 
not happened to be at the baptism of John. 
But it was natural that in choosing new 
disciples it should be "from them that have 
companied with us . . . from the baptism 
of John,'' ' and that when they went up 
together to Jerusalem and formed a bro- 
therhood, they should employ baptism 
" in the name of Jesus " as their rite of 
initiation in token of " the forgiveness of 
sins." 

But baptism gained a new and unfore- 
seen meaning from what occurred at this 
time. "When they were baptized, the Holy 
Ghost came upon them and they spake with 

^ Acts I : 21, 22. 

72 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

tongues.'' This was an experience so gen- 
eral, so universal, that baptism was not re- 
garded as Christian baptism at all unless 
the baptized manifested the "gifts of the 
Spirit." The baptism of Jesus himself, an 
incident antecedent to their definite know- 
ledge of him, was represented as accompa- 
nied by the coming of " the whole fountain 
of the Holy Ghost upon him."' Mere dis- 
ciples who had believed and been baptized 
"unto John's baptism/' without "receiving 
the Holy Ghost," were baptized over again 
" in the name of the Lord Jesus " after due 
instruction. And when Paul's hands had 
been laid upon them, they "spake with 
tongues and prophesied.'"" A saying of Jesus 
was recalled promising a greater matter 
than John's immersion in the waters of re- 
pentance. He had declared that the time 

^ The Gospel of the Nazarenes, The representation of 
Mark i : ii and parallels has the same conception in less 
pronounced form. 

,^ Acts 19: 1-7. 

73 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

would come when men would be flooded 
with the Spirit of God/ 

It is because of this accompanying phe- 
nomenon of " the Spirit " that baptism 
signifies to Paul both death and resurrec- 
tion. The immersion beneath the water is a 
"burial with Christ/' because it had to be 
preceded by an act of dedication, of self- 
surrender, which is like Jesus' own "becom- 
ing obedient unto the death of the cross.'' 
In Paul's own case this self-surrender had 
been a moral death, a crucifixion to all his 
former world of hope and effort. As the 
believer was lifted from beneath the sur- 
face into the light of day, the Spirit came 
upon him, and involuntarily "he spake with 
tongues and prophesied." To Paul this was 
resurrection to a life that was not his own, 
but Christ living in him. Paul might think 

* Earliest form, Acts ii : i6; cf. i ; 5. Adapted in Mark i : 
8. The original saying would be in line with current an- 
ticipations of the coming Kingdom (see above, p. 57) and 
with Jesus' own thought, Matt. 12 • 43-45 ; Luke 17:21. 

74 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

the form, the mere material rite, a matter 
of indifference; but the thing symbolized 
was to him the most vital thing in Chris- 
tianity. ^^As many as were baptized into 
Christ did put on Christ." Until this living 
Lord, who " is the Spirit/' had mastered 
their lives and made them his own, men 
had no hope, they were "yet in their sins." 
Fortunately Paul had the wisdom, the moral 
insight, to realize that the mere mastering 
of bodily functions by "the Spirit," result- 
ing in the spectacular gifts of " tongues " 
and " prophecies," were temporary and sub- 
ordinate. Paul himself was endowed with 
these gifts to an exceptional degree;' but 
his moral sobriety taught him that the gifts 
which "abide" come from a divine mastery 
of the inner springs of the will,^ when "the 
mind which was in Christ Jesus" lays hold 
upon a man's inmost soul and turns it to 
"faith and hope and love."^ 

* I Cor. 14 : 18. 2 phji 2 : 13. ^ I Cor. 13 : 13. 

75 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

We have seen that the author of Acts 
connects the " outpouring of the Spirit '' 
with a definite day, the fiftieth day from the 
"great sabbath'' of Passover/ a "first day 
of the week " designated " Pentecost '' for 
this reason, a feast which according to 
current Jewish opinion commemorated the 
giving of the law from Sinai in a stream of 
fire which divided "like sparks from an 
anvil" into seventy voices, one in each of 
the seventy tongues of the nations."" Luke 
has been much influenced by this Jewish 
legend of the giving of the Law in relating 
the origin of the Christian gift of " tongues"; 
but we have no need to question the accu- 
racy of his date, nor the general effect of the 
occurrence. Baptism, as we saw, must have 
begun at about this time as a rite of initia- 
tion into the brotherhood formed when 



* Lev. 23 : 16. 

* A midrash derived from Deut. 33 : 2, and traceable in 
Philo and the Talmud. 

76 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

they first met in numbers sufficient to 
warrant formal organization; and this was 
surely in Jerusalem, and most apt to be at 
the feast of Pentecost. Moreover, we have 
evidence — later, indeed, than the Pauline 
Epistles, yet barely later — of the observ- 
ance by Christians of the "first day of the 
week '' as " the Lord's d^y,'' ' and this cor- 
roborates the idea that Pentecost does in- 
deed mark the first appearance of these 
psychic phenomena. For, notwithstanding 
the traditional opinion, based on the Markan 
story of the women's discovery of the empty 
sepulchre on "the first day of the week,'' 
that the observance of " the Lord's day " 
rests on this event, the real relation is 
probably the reverse. The Church had its 
" Lord's day " before the story of the 
women had ever come to light. Even after 
that it did not always consider that the 
resurrection had taken place "on the third 

* Acts 20 : 7 ; Rev. i : 10. 

77 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

day/' or ^^ after three days.'' It remained 
a very debatable question just when the 
resurrection and when the ascension had 
taken place. The resurrection j^/M began 
with the " manifestation " to Peter, perhaps 
" after six days/' ' perhaps still longer after 
the Friday of the crucifixion. It cannot have 
been so earl}^ as " the third day." Paul be- 
lieved that the glorification of Jesus' body 
had been " on the third day/' but this, as 
he expressly says, was an inference from 
" scripture," perhaps Hosea 6 : 2, perhaps 
the law of " firstfruits," with which he con- 
nects the resurrection in First Corinthians 
15 : 20.'' If the observance of "the Lord's 
day" had been as primeval as we have reason 
to think, and been based upon the women's 
discovery of the empty tomb, it would be 
incredible that Paul in summing up the com- 

' This may be the significance of the dating of the Reve- 
lation to Peter, Mark 9: 2, and parallels. 
^ Cf. Lev. 23: II. 

78 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

mon gospel of the resurrection should make 
no mention whatever of this story^ or that it 
should appear so late and with the varia- 
tions that we actually find. If the tradi- 
tion of " the day of the Lord '' is as early 
as we think, it goes back beyond that of 
the women's discovery of the empty tomb, 
goes back to the triumphant manifestation 
to the brotherhood expectantly assembled 
in Jerusalem, of Jesus as Lord, on that 
great ^^ first day of the week," fifty days 
after the fateful sabbath of Passover, some 
forty after the manifestations had been given 
"to Cephas'' and "the twelve." Then, at 
Pentecost, perhaps in conjunction with the 
adoption of the rite of baptism, "the Holy 
Ghost came upon them, and they spake 
with tongues and prophesied." Scriptural 
reasons were not hard to find after this for 
dating other "manifestations," including the 
late-appearing story of the women's vision 
of angels, on " the first day of the week." 

79 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

Like baptism, the " breaking of bread " 
was a rite older than the Church. In its 
simplest form it was just the common meal, 
at which Jesus had presided as house- 
father, breaking the bread with prayer, and 
distributing it to his household and their 
guests. As such it went back in origin to 
the days of the Galilean ministry. Thus 
Jesus could be " recognized in the break- 
ing of the bread '' even by disciples who 
had not been present at the last supper. 
This common meal of the brotherhood, not 
widely different in form and purpose from 
the common meals of the " neighborhoods'' 
of Pharisees, or the banquets of social and 
religious clubs among the Greeks, became 
the so-called Agape, or " love-feast," of the 
primitive Church. The name was appro- 
priate because it gave opportunity, when 
not abused, as at Corinth, by the spirit of 
clique and aristocracy,' to help the weak, 

* I Cor. II : 21. 

80 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

feed the hungry, promote the real sense of 
brotherhood. In the early days of devotion, 
when the Church was first formed in Jeru- 
salem, this " breaking of bread '' together, 
in the name, and after the example, of Jesus, 
was not only a " daily " lesson of the spirit 
of brotherhood, but a matter of practical 
sustenance to the " widows '' and the poor. 
We may realize something of the part it 
played among the primitive disciples when 
we take up the Gospels in which they have 
embodied their beliefs, institutions, and 
practices, and see how no less than six dif- 
ferent versions of the Feeding the Multitude 
are incorporated, each dwelling minutely 
on the whole procedure of the seating of 
the assembly in orderly "eating compa- 
nies," the breaking and blessing of the food 
by the presiding officer, the distribution of it 
by his subordinates, and the " gathering of 
the fragments'' for subsequent distribution 
to the poor. The "love-feast," rightly con- 

8i 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

ducted, was a worthy institution by which 
to perpetuate, not in outward form alone, 
but in spirit also, the brotherhood of Jesus. 
But PauPs ordering of the Agapd in First 
Corinthians 1 1 : 1 7-34 does not stop with his 
rebuke of the selfishness exhibited at the 
fraternal meal. He goes on to speak of a rite 
explicitly declared to have been instituted by 
Jesus himself on " the night in which he was 
betrayed,'' and expressly for the purpose 
of perpetuating the memory of his martyr- 
dom. Jesus' last parable had been an adapt- 
ation of the bread and wine of the meal 
in which for the last time he had performed 
the well-known rite,' as tokens of his su- 
preme gift. Henceforth when they broke 
their bread together they should take it in 
memory of him, because his body was 
about to be given, his blood about to be 

' Gospel criticism reveals the fact that this last meal was 
not the passover, but the so-called qiddush of the night be- 
fore. See Beginnings of Gospel Story, pp. 195-205, and 
note above (p. 13). 

82 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

shed, for their sakes, as he now gave them 
the broken bread and poured forth the 
wine. Thus there was added to the existent 
fraternal meal a special " memorial of the 
Lord's death/' a " communion of the body 
and blood of the Lord.'' In Jesus' intention 
it had been simply a " memorial " of him. 
As often as they performed together the 
rite of the blessing and breaking of bread 
and blessing of the cup, they would remem- 
ber that his death had borne out the prin- 
ciple of his life. As he had bidden them 
freely pour out all the common stock be- 
fore the multitude when he had made them 
all his guests in Galilee, so now with his 
life-blood. It was given for the "many " in 
the cause of the kingdom. Paul, after his 
manner, has infused the memorial with a 
mystic sense derived from his own inner 
experience of death and resurrection with 
Christ. To Paul the " communion of the 
Lord's body" is in the strict sense a "sac- 

83 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

rament" in which the believer becomes 
mystically united to the Lord, so that to the 
worthy partaker it is almost the "medicine 
of immortality '' which Ignatius declares it, 
and to the unworthy an actual cause of 
sickness and death.' We have no need to 
pursue the development of the rite through 
its later stages. It is easy to distinguish 
what Paul " received of the Lord '' ^ from 
his personal application of it. Jesus did not 
institute a sacrament. He did give his fol- 
lowers a "memorial'' of his teaching and 
example. It has become a " sacrament '' 
through Christian experience. Since the 
time of Paul — nay, since the time, per- 
haps, when " the twelve '' first gathered at 
the astounding summons, "The Lord is 
risen, and hath appeared unto Simon," and 

* I Cor. II : 30. 

*I Cor. II : 23. The preposition is ^/^ = '' as coming 
from," not fara^ which might apply to direct or indirect 
transmission. The contents of the statement, simple matter 
of historical fact, show that the reference is not to revelation. 

84 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

they who were come together were them- 
selves made conscious of the presence of 
the risen Jesus " in the breaking of the 
bread," ' men have found this "fellowship 
(communion) of his sufferings '' a means 
of becoming " conformed unto his death '' 
and thereby "attaining unto the resurrec- 
tion from the dead.''"" The sacramental 
significance of the Church's rites is an out- 
growth of her own experience. But already 
the little brotherhood that assembled in 
Jerusalem had the token, as they had also 
the assurance, of the forgiveness of sins, 
when they baptized " in the name of Jesus.'' 
When they met together for " the breaking 

' This trait is seldom wanting from the older references 
to the first manifestation to ^' the twelve " and may be au- 
thentic. We find it referred to in Acts lo : 41 ; i : 4 (?) ; Luke 
24 : 43 ; John 21 : 13-14 ; 20 : 19 (?). In the Gospel accordirig 
to the Hebrews^ which makes the manifestation " to James " 
the first, Jesus " called for a table and bread, and said: My 
brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from the 
dead." 

* Phil. 3 : 10, II. 

8s 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

of bread," they had also a " communion " of 
the Lord's body, a " memorial '' of him who 
had " suffered for them, leaving them an 
example that they should follow his steps.'' ' 

We have sought to trace, simply and 
briefly, but with unreserved application of 
the most untrammeled criticism, the story 
of the Founding of the Church, the origin 
of its membership, its faith in the risen 
Christ, its institutions. It will be said that 
we have made it the sole work of Peter, a 
Galilean fisherman, acting on the impulse of 
what he was pleased to regard as a " mani- 
festation "to him of his old-time Leader, 
as the glorified Son of God. 

In a sense, that is true. Peter was the 
founder of the Church, as Jesus was the 
Founder of the kingdom of God. The hum- 
bler the originator, the more sure are we 
that his work was just what it has always pur- 

^ I Pet. 2:21. 

86 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

ported to be : the awakening, the reincarna- 
tion, of the spirit of Jesus. If anything has 
been made clear by our study, it is that no- 
thing went to the building of the Church 
which was not placed there in loyal per- 
petuation of the teaching and example of 
Jesus. Its faith, its principle of order, its in- 
stitutions, its work, were all from him. Even 
its leaders and its members were his old-time 
companions and fellow-workers in the gath- 
ering of the lost sheep. What else could they 
do ? Other foundation could no man lay than 
that was laid, which was Christ Jesus. 

And what of Peter's " manifestation '' ? — 
Purposely we have refrained from raising the 
question so often raised concerning this fun- 
damental starting-point of all : was it subject- 
ive, or objective ? Historical criticism does 
not furnish the means of determining whe- 
ther that manifestation of Jesus as the Son 
of God with power, the revelation of Peter, 
was effected by the direct intervention of 

87 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

the risen spirit of Jesus, surmounting all the 
obstacles between that unseen world and 
this in the supreme effort of redeeming love ; 
or whether the influence was indirect, a 
return to Peter's mind, lost in grief and 
despair, of all that his companionship with 
Jesus had meant of devotion and of faith in 
God, a rushing back of these amid the old 
scenes of his first call to be "a fisher of 
men,'' with such power of conviction as 
carried reason out of itself into the realm of 
ecstasy and vision. Either is possible. There 
seems no present likelihood of our ever ob- 
taining decisive information as to which was 
the historic fact. We must go back further 
yet for the ultimate basis of our faith. We 
must rest it where Paul does when he places 
Peter's revelation in the same category with 
his own as " the inworking of God," mani- 
festing his Son "in "him, "declaring" Jesus 
to be " the Son of God with power." Whether 
by objective intervention of a personal risen 

88 



THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

spirit of Jesus, or by indirect influence of a 
past companionship, such as can be given 
also to " those who have not seen and yet 
have believed/' this is what Jesus eternally 
is ; and as such God is continually reveal- 
ing him, " the power of God unto salvation 
to every one that believeth, to the Jew 
first, and also to the Greek." 

There is then a sense in which the Church 
has a greater Founder than Peter, or even 
Jesus himself. It was the work of One who 
" worketh all things after the counsel of his 
will; to the end that we should be unto the 
praise of his glory,'' who " were sealed in 
Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise, 
which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto 
the redemption of God's own possession, 
unto the praise of his glory." 

For not like kingdoms of the world 

Thy holy Church, O God ! 
Though earthquake shocks are threatening her, 

And tempests are abroad ; 

89 



BAPTISM AND BREAKING OF BREAD 

Unshaken as the eternal hills, 

Immovable she stands, 
A mountain that shall fill the earth, 

A house not made by hands. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



MODERN 

RELIGIOUS 

PROBLEMS 



EDITED BY 

DR. AMBROSE W. VERNON 



For a long time there has been an atmosphere of 
uncertainty in the religious realm. This uncertainty 
has been caused by the widespread knowledge that 
modern scholarship has modified the traditional con- 
ceptions of the Christian religion, and particularly by 
widespread ignorance of the precise modifications to 
which modem scholarship has been led. 

The aim of this series of books is to lay before the 
great body of intelligent people in the English-speak- 
ing world the precise results of this scholarship, so 
that men both within and without the churches may 
be able to understand the conception of the Christian 
religion (and of its Sacred Books) which obtains 
among its leading scholars to-day, and that they may 
intelligently cooperate in the great practical problems 
with which the churches are now confronted. 

While at many a point divergent views are cham- 
pioned, it has become apparent in the last few years 
that it is possible to speak of a consensus of opinion 
among the leading scholars of England and America, 
who have, in general, adopted the modern point of 



The publishers and editor congratulate themselves 
that this consensus of opinion may be presented to 
the public not by middle -men, but by men who from 
their position and attainment are recognized through- 
out the English Protestant world as among those best 
able to speak with authority on the most important 
subjects which face intelligent religious men to-day. 
It is a notable sign of the times that these eminent 
specialists have gladly consented to pause in their de- 
tailed research, in order to acquaint the religious 
public with the results of their study. 

Modern Religious Problems are many, but they 
fall chiefly under one of the four divisions into which 
this series of books is to be divided : — 

I. The Old Testament. 
II. The New^ Testament. 

III. Fundamental Christian Conceptions. 

IV. Practical Church Problems. 

Under these four main divisions the most vital 
problems will be treated in short, concise, clear vol- 
umes. They will leave technicalities at one side and 
they will be published at a price which will put the 
assured results of religious scholarship within the 
reach of all. 

The volumes already arranged for are the following ; 

I. OLD TESTAMENT 

"THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
LAW." By Canon S. R. DRIVER, Oxford University. 

"HOW WE GOT OUR OLD TESTAMENT." 

By Professor WILLIAM R. ARNOLD, Andover Semin- 
ary. 

••THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF ISRAEL." 

By Professor L. B. PATON, Hartford Theological Semin- 
ary. 



II. NEW TESTAMENT 

"THE EARLIEST SOURCES FOR THE LIFE OF 
JESUS." By Professor F. C. BURKITT, Cambridge Uni- 
versity, England. (In Press.) 

"THE MIRACLES OF JESUS." 

By Professor F. C. PORTER, Yale University. 

"THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH." 

By Professor B. W. BACON, Yale University. (Now 
Ready.) 

"HOW WE GOT OUR NEW TESTAMENT." 
By Professor J. H. ROPES, Harvard University. 

"PAUL AND PAULINISM." 

By Rev. JAMES M OFF ATT, D. D., Broughty Ferry, 
Forfarshire, Scotland. 

"THE HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS VALUE OF 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL." By Professor E. F. SCOTT, 
Queen's University, Kingston. (In Press.) 

III. FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN 
CONCEPTIONS 

"THE GOSPEL OF JESUS." 

By Professor G. W. KNOX, Union Theological Seminary. 
New York. With General Introduction to the Series. (Now 
Ready.) 

"THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIAN." 

By Professor A. C. McGIFFERT, Union Theological Sena- 
inary. 

"SIN AND ITS FORGIVENESS." 

By President WILLIAM DeW. HYDE, Bowdoin College. 
(Now Ready.) 

'THE PERSON OF JESUS." 

By President H. C. KING, Oberlin College. 

"THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES." 

By Professor SHAILER MATHEWS, University of Chi- 
cago. 



IV. PRACTICAL CHURCH PROBLEMS 

'*THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH IN MODERN 
SOCIETY." By WM. JEWETT TUCKER, Ex-Presi- 
dent of Dartmouth College. 

*'THE CHURCH AND LABOR." 

By CHARLES STELZLE, Superintendent of Department 
of the Church and Labor of the Presbyterian Church of the 
United States. 

"THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE BIBLE SCHOOLS 
TO MODERN NEEDS." By Professor CHARLES F. 
KENT, Yale University. 

"THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD." 

By Rev. HENRY SLOANE COFFIN, Madison Ave. 
Presbyterian Church, New York City. 

The general editor of the series, Rev. Ambrose 
White Vernon, is a graduate of Princeton University 
(1891) and of Union Theological Seminary (1894). 
After two years more of study in Germany, on a fel- 
lowship, he had an experience of eight years in the 
pastorate, at Hiawatha, Kansas, and East Orange, 
New Jersey. From 1904 to 1907 he was professor of 
Biblical literature in Dartmouth College, and then 
professor of practical theology at Yale till the present 
year, when he returned to the pastorate, succeeding 
the late Dr. Reuen Thomas at Harvard Church, 
Brookline, one of the leading churches of metropoli- 
tan Boston. Dartmouth College gave him the de- 
gree of D. D. in 1907. 

The volumes are attractively bound in cloth. Thin 
i2mo, each 50 cents net. Postage j cents, 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
4 Park St., Boston; 85 Fifth Ave., New York 



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